


Conquer

by Antiquity



Series: With Miles Before I Sleep [1]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bat Family, Episode Related, Family Fluff, Gen, Mentions of the team - Freeform, Mentor/Protégé, Welcome to Happy Harbor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:12:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antiquity/pseuds/Antiquity
Summary: “All hail me, conqueror of Happy Harbour!”“Greetings, conqueror,” he says, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder and squeezing before not-so-subtly, if the knowing look in Dick’s eyes is anything to go by, checking him over for injuries. “What you were doing in Happy Harbour to begin with? $14,978 is something of a sum for your first outing.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> I love Team-as-family fluff but I do adore the Batfamily and their dynamic. Plus, I am a terrible Dick Grayson fan - I feel, for Young Justice especially, there should be a 'Robin Favouritism' tag (because a 'Dick Favouritism' tag would go so wrong, so quickly...). So here's a little something, because out of everyone on the YJ team, Dick lives with his mentor. You can't tell me that cumulatively they don't have more information than pretty much everyone, 99% of the time (and troll everyone for the last 1%). 
> 
> Enjoy!

Bruce lets himself into the Manor and puts his briefcase by the hall table, pulling off his overcoat as he checks the time. Quarter past six; Dick should be back too.

“I’m home,” he calls. “Dick?”

The article about the incident at Happy Harbour is open on his phone, and though there are no clear pictures he already received a notification about the team’s involvement from Red Tornado, punctilious when it comes to protocol. It isn’t as though he needs it: an incident near Happy Harbour with Robin a stone’s throw away? His first thought had been five days’ grounding, which he’s still considering, but the collateral damage is under $15,000 – compared to some League missions that’s practically peanuts, and the robot assured him compensation was already being discussed. The destroyed beach-side house was apparently scheduled for demolition the month after next. If only all missions could be so fortunate.

“Bruce!” Dick appears on the upper landing, beaming at him. “All hail me, conqueror of Happy Harbour!” He perches on the mahogany banister of the staircase and pushes off, sliding his way down two flights of stairs with his eerie chuckle floating behind him. A swift flick of the foot turns the dismount into a somersault and Dick lands just in front of Bruce, who, by dint of long practice, knows the right distance at which to stand from the base of the stairs: this is one of his boy’s favourite activities, closely followed by hanging from the chandelier and giggling madly.

Both, in turn, are followed by madly running away from Alfred and the feather-duster he brandishes with great accuracy.

“Greetings, conqueror,” he says, placing a hand on Dick’s shoulder and squeezing before not-so-subtly, if the knowing look in Dick’s eyes is anything to go by, checking him over for injuries. “What you were doing in Happy Harbour to begin with? $14,978 is something of a sum for your first outing.”

“Uhh…” the grin turns sheepish, and Dick rubs the back of his neck. “Oops?”

“Dick,” Bruce sighs, and his ward throws a mock-punch, pulled at the last moment, at his stomach.

“Don’t pull the ‘woe is me’ tone, it’s un-asterous. We avoided major damage as best we could, and it _was_ our first mission. Next time will be better. We’ll stay under $7,000.”

“Somehow that does not reassure me,” Bruce retorts, before greeting Alfred, who has appeared from the kitchen with a tray of tea and biscuits. “Tell me.” It won’t be a formal report, since they’re not in the Cave, but Robin knows perfectly well information of any type is integral to Batman’s operations and will strive to present an accurate recount. That, and Clark has lamented that both Bruce and Dick share the personality trait of always needing to know more than the people around them. The Boy Scout’s exasperation is unnecessary; Bruce is aware it tends to make them insufferable at times but he’s never really given a damn about that and Dick likes knowledge too much to bother about his friends’ complaints. There’s something smugly satisfying about outwitting any physically superior opponent, especially in Robin’s case.

“We went out to have a look around in Miss Martian’s bioship as our first outing as a team, and then we totally defeated Mr. Twister, a robot piloted by an android.” Dick smirks up at Bruce with an expression his mentor is fairly sure he learnt from the Batman. “You should have seen us – actually, no, I’m glad you didn’t, you would not believe how long it took us to get turbed.”

Bruce parses his way through this, and then ventures, “...turbed?” He gestures for Dick to follow Alfred to the ground-floor lounge.

“The opposite of disturbed, obviously!” Dick rolls impish eyes at him and darts off, turning handstands as he goes. Ensconcing himself comfortably in his favourite of the armchairs clustered by the unlit fireplace, he grins at Bruce as he settles onto the couch and then launches into his report.

“First we went to the Cave to meet Red Tornado when he arrived, ‘coz we wanted to see if he had a mission for us.”

“Mission deployments are –”

“Are the Batman’s responsibility,” Dick mimics Tornado’s mechanical monotone, and then scowls at Bruce, light-hearted mischief in his face turning abruptly serious. “We know, but it’s been a week since the formation of the team! Why haven’t you given us a mission yet? Are you just baby-sitting us? Do you still not trust us? That came up a lot today, believe me.”

“I do,” Bruce replies, the good mood brought on by Dick’s cheerfulness receding as stress and exasperation over this push-and-pull resurface. “But giving a new team a mission isn’t a simple matter. Harper can throw as much vitriol as he wants, but missions are dangerous at the best of times, and every parameter and possibility needs to be weighed and evaluated. Do you expect me to find some sort of smuggling ring or a gun-running gang headed by a supervillain and send you in with no preparation, no guidance, no gear, when you not only have a newly-arrived Martian but also a sixteen-week-old Kryptonian clone on your team, both of whom have with no experience with the type of stealth needed and no knowledge of the rules by which we operate?”

That the mere founding of the team is still a matter of contention among some Justice Leaguers is not something he wants to share with his bright, enthusiastic boy. It is simply another thing to tuck out of sight, as is the ugly, selfish secret that it is in part he who is still stalling the deployment of this inexperienced team, simply because he is afraid of something happening to Robin while Batman isn’t there.

Dick sighs, the challenge that blazes in his eyes dimming as he acknowledges Bruce’s points. “I know, Bruce. You want to keep us safe.” He gazes at Bruce for a moment or two longer, and then smiles. Perhaps it should be odd to see mature wisdom settling on his young face, but it’s not, and Bruce relies on that, on both Robin and Dick’s ability to guide him, more than he should.

A moment later, though, Dick belies that maturity by vaulting over the arm of his chair, scrambling up onto the back of the couch, and walking along the top. Bruce steadies his hold on his tea cup up and leans forward slightly.

“Dick,” he chides, more out of form than anything. Dick drops down on his other side to sprawl over the couch without jostling the cushions and smirks at him, perfectly aware he has Bruce wrapped around his little finger. He’s warm and comfortable, and Bruce has never been at ease with close physical contact but Dick is always the exception.

“Finished?” he asks, in a long-suffering tone that fools no-one.

Dick just grins, settling in.

“Once you hear about us and the robot, you’ll definitely see that we’re ready. We won’t get any better without practice and training.”

With that, Dick launches into a detailed recount of his day, starting with exploring the cave and seeing the bioship, which leads to a tangent on Martian shape-shifting abilities and how weird it was to see himself as a girl, and then segues onto telepathy. Dick’s mental shields are strong enough to withstand a surface brush by Martian Manhunter so Bruce isn’t worried about the deeper secrets he and his ward lock away, but he can tell Dick was little unsettled by Miss Martian’s intrusion.

“Does J’onn ever do that to you?”

“On certain missions we occasionally have to rely on telepathic conversation, but his experience with humans and the fact he has an adult’s understanding of boundaries means he nearly always clears it with us first before deployment.”

“It’s not that Miss M doesn’t understand boundaries, it’s just that she doesn’t know any better yet. She said that’s how they communicate on Mars.”

“This is Earth.”

“Duh.” Dick rolls irreverent eyes at him, and Bruce flicks his knee in retaliation. “She’ll just have to adjust. We all have secrets, and whether or not they interfere with the functioning of the team the choice to reveal them should be ours alone. You should have seen Superboy’s reaction, he was furious. Guess he had enough of Cadmus poking around his head.” Dick frowns to himself for a moment, and then adds, “It does seem useful, though, for sensitive missions.”

“With time and experience you can all learn to utilise it, as long as Miss Martian remembers personal boundaries.”

“Kaldur is good at explaining things like that, he’ll keep her in line without hurting her feelings. Miss Martian’s great so far, if a little naïve, and the bioship is awesome! Except for the part where she can’t read inorganic minds.”

“The Mr. Twister part?” Bruce guesses, and Dick nods as he continues his recitation. When he reaches the part of their first confrontation and their swift defeat, his eyes drop and his voice is a little husky in reluctance to reveal his perceived failures. Bruce can only squeeze his knee and demand an account of his injuries, thankfully negligible, because he made Dick this way; his expectations of excellence are the reason he sees weight on his boy’s shoulders. Now, Batman can’t do anything but believe – know – that Robin will grow and surpass this weight, evolve into a man of his own design with all the world spread out at his feet. As Dick relates Miss Martian’s erroneous but understandable suggestion that Red Tornado is the one testing them and forges on through his confession of doubt, of fear over whether or not they would actually even be a team, he lowers his eyes and speaks to his knees rather than to Bruce’s face like he thinks Bruce has never had these thoughts.

“Dick,” he interrupts, and feels his ward tense, “you can’t expect to work as a seamless team the first time you fight together. Confidence in your abilities will come with experience and greater trust. Do you think I’ve never doubted the League’s ability to put aside egos and responsibilities and personal quarrels? Do you think they’ve never doubted me? You should know that’s not the case: you were caught in crossfire when I first brought you on to the streets.”

Dick huffs, scowling at the memory of the earnest entreaties from all of the early members of the League to leave the streets, leave the Mission, to them. “We’ll get better, I know we will. We managed to take down Mr. Twister together without League intervention, and we can do it again. Then the League won’t call us kids.”

“I know you can, Dick,” Bruce sighs, and stares pensively at the unlit fireplace like the empty husk has some secrets the tongues of flame never tell. From the corner of his eye he sees Dick gazing shrewdly up at him, and then a warm, small, calloused hand creeps over his forearm.

“Are you afraid, Bruce?”

His mouth tightens.

“I am too, you know, sometimes. But you said courage is feeling fear and acting in spite of it, and I’m going to be as brave as you.”

A disbelieving sigh escapes Bruce and rushes into the quiet, and he forces himself to look his ward in the eye. “Dick, I am the coward between us.”

Confusion flashes over his ward’s face, yet ironically Bruce is not brave enough to say out loud how terrified he is of losing him. Gone is the laughing, light-hearted mood of earlier, but he knows in the very bottom of his heart that Dick’s happiness always outweighs his own, even if he wants to keep Robin sheltered beneath Batman’s heavy cape for as long as possible. How else will he grow, why else did he teach him? “I gave you my word that this covert team would be formed and would operate under League parameters. Are you sure you want this?”

The question is more to fortify his own mind and decisions than to really ask Dick to reconsider. He doesn’t need to see the solemn nod and fierce eyes to know that his boy is determined to do more, become more, just as Bruce always knew he would. Pride flares in his chest.

“Very well, but on one condition. I’ll try and keep my ‘overprotective tendencies,’ as Alfred so kindly calls them, to a minimum when you’re on a team mission, as long as you promise to be careful, Dick. Do you understand? You must remember that asking for help is not defeat or something to be ashamed of. That’s why the League exists. Deal?”

“Deal,” Dick says, exhilaration lighting up his face. The beaming grin he turns upon Bruce dispels the sombre mood that had settled upon them and his mentor is helpless to resist smiling back. Dick squirms into a more comfortable position and tosses his legs over Bruce’s lap, resting his ankles on the arm of the couch on the other side. He’s every inch the contented cat who knows full well he has the run of the house. “Does that mean you have a mission in mind?”

“Perhaps,” Bruce responds, finishing the last of his tepid tea as normalcy sweeps back over them and passing Dick a biscuit. “How did you end up defeating him?”

Dick clenches a victorious fist at the knowledge, grinning widely, and then launches into their battle plan. In the end, it’s coherent, adequately thought out and successfully executed, even though he does tense when Dick describes Miss Martian dropping the rock on the pilot. His ward assures him that was his reaction too, and that the pilot was in fact an android, which was why Miss Martian couldn’t read his mind.

“Red Tornado doesn’t seem to be concerned with the fact that the robot was after him, and he wouldn’t let us help! Is that a robot thing?”

“Possibly,” Bruce says, “but I’ll talk to him about it. He seems a capable supervisor.”

Dick flushes. “Yeah, it seems that way.”

“Oh?” Bruce raises an eyebrow, and Dick squirms until his face is mushed between Bruce’s bicep and the couch.

“Nothing!”

“Really?”

“Yes!”

Bruce chuckles at the teenage sprawl across his lap. “That doesn’t took comfortable. Are you too tired for patrol?”

Dick emerges from the cushions to glare at him, and Bruce smiles in surrender. “All right, good.” He pats Dick’s leg once and then shifts forward to indicate he wants to stand. “Go get ready for dinner, I think Alfred must be nearly ready to call us.”

“Can I put on the TV while you change?” Dick lifts his legs up ninety degrees and then flops them back down after Bruce has risen, wrinkling his nose in his standard show of teenage exasperation when Bruce ruffles his hair. He doesn’t move away, though, and that soothes the tense and worried thing inside Bruce’s chest that’s made itself known since Robin said he wanted to branch out.

“All right, but as long as you’re not late to the table.”

“I’ll beat you there!”

“You can try,” Bruce says dryly, and with a last shared grin he heads up to his room as the TV is switched on. On the way, he closes the Happy Harbour article – his boy is victorious and safe, and that’s all that matters. They’ll face the next mission when it comes, but for now, Gotham is out there and waiting for them.

 


End file.
